Edward Timothy Romero will spend the rest of his life in prison, without the possibility of parole, for the murder and dismemberment of a 16-year-old Denver girl.

Denver District Judge William Robbins called Alicia Martinez's murder "as horrible a case as I have ever seen."

Robbins had little discretion in sentencing Romero, 28, whose conviction in February carried a mandatory life sentence. Attorneys for Romero, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, had asked that he be placed in a mental hospital where he could receive treatment.

Romero clearly had mental illness, Robbins said, but it was not sufficient to excuse his actions.

Speaking directly to Romero, Robbins said putting a pistol in a pillow, putting that pillow against the teenager's face and firing twice was "brutal enough."

"But the things you did to Alicia Martinez after that horrible act were completely unspeakable," he said.

Before Robbins handed down the sentence, Alicia's mother, grandmother and stepmother cried as they told the courtroom, crowded with their large extended families, how the crime has devastated them. Several members of the jury who heard the case were also in the courtroom.

Antoinette Paniagua described how her husband, Alicia's father, Jesus Paniagua, had been devoted to his only child. Paniagua had sole custody of Alicia from the time she was four.

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Antoinette Paniagua said her husband chaperoned Alicia's school dances and went with her on school trips to visit the campuses of Harvard and Stanford universities.

He "will always remember standing at her coffin, wondering what was inside — and what wasn't," Paniagua said.

"But he chooses to remember all the nights he tucked Alicia into bed and how he taught her to say a prayer that begins, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' . . . "

Not long before she died, Alicia Martinez asked her father if she was getting too old for that prayer, but he told her " 'You will never be too old to pray,' " Paniagua said.

Romero's aunt told the judge that "Tim has always had many good qualities," but fell through the cracks of the mental health system and never got the treatment he needed.

In October 2010, Alicia went to spend the weekend with her mother. On Friday night, a friend of her mother took Alicia to a party in the garage of Romero's home. As the party broke up, that friend tried briefly to hook up with a man at the party before stumbling home, leaving Alicia alone with Romero, according to testimony at the trial.

During the trial, Romero's longtime girlfriend testified that later that night, when she returned to the home, he took her to the garage and showed her Alicia's body. That girlfriend, Francesca Pagliosotti, testified that Romero forced her to help as he cut up Alicia's body, even putting parts of it in a blender and flushing other parts down the toilet in the basement of the home, where they lived with their two young children.

Pieces of Alicia's body were eventually found in trashbags, after her family members spent two days searching for the missing girl. Romero had helped in that search.

Pagliosotti is serving a 10-year sentence for her role in trying to cover up the crime.

Romero's defense turned on his state of mind at the time of the crime.

His defense attorneys argued that he had long suffered from mental illness that caused temporary "blackouts" and that when the blackouts ended, Romero had no memory of what he had done during them.

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